


walking out the door with your bags

by orphan_account



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Infidelity, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21873187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: She didn’t give much of a response to Lizzie; she didn’t want her to know how much she’d thought about it herself. How much Gina crossed her mind. Had it been that long? Was it because she was American? She did have a striking resemblance to one of the girls she’d taken home, a shy, rich man’s daughter who’d blushed the whole night and cried afterwards, begged her to stay with her and then begged her to leave and not to breathe a word.Ada couldn’t imagine Gina crying into her shoulder. She certainly couldn’t imagine her begging for anything.
Relationships: Gina Gray/Ada Shelby
Kudos: 13





	walking out the door with your bags

In truth, Ada had never really cared for Michael. Some posh boy with a smug smile that Polly brought home one day and had clouded her judgement ever since - that’s what Ada thought. Before Michael, Polly was just a woman. Polly Gray: the Peaky Blinders’ matriarch. The mad gypsy widow. The only person who could keep Thomas Shelby slightly under control. Now she was a mother first and foremost.

  
All of it went to shit after Michael; Polly stopped caring. Stopped caring about Tommy, and henceforth stopped caring about the welfare of the family. She cared about Michael, and money. Maybe Ada and Finn too, if it didn’t inconvenience her too much. John when he died. 

As a child, Ada worshipped her Aunt Polly. They were the only two women — they had to stick together, for their own sanity, Polly had told her. She wasn’t wrong; they were definitely the smartest two, after Tommy. It was a mans world after all. Tommy knew all about things Ada and Polly could only dream (nightmare) of because they’d never be allowed in the room to hear of them. War. Business. Talkative Jews in London who can seemingly survive a bullet to the head. Women. Her brothers knew about women in ways Ada never had. What it was like to truly, whole heartedly love one. 

Vividly, Ada remembers the first time she’d been with a woman. It had been one of Freddie’s fancy communist parties, not too long after they left Birmingham, one of the first parties she went to without Karl.

It was hard to trust the nannies. She never would, not really. Not being a Shelby. She made a habit of only surrounding herself with people that were vulnerable to her in some way, eventually — immigrants, impoverished, homosexuals etc. Discovering they usually were much more pleasant to be around anyway was an added bonus, even if it did make her feel slightly guilty.

Ada had thought Freddie was exaggerating when he told her how unabashed these people were, how free. He’d laughed at her in that way all men do when a woman tried to know things she was too precious for, like she was a child. Smiling down at her like you would a China doll. It infuriated her the most that he hadn’t really done it until they were married. He’d explained vaguely that these people didn’t care about the law, gave her a pointed look and she knew what he meant. It exhilarated her — it’s not like she had been short of breaking the law in Small Heath but not this kind. Growing up, there’d been two men who lived a couple streets over who Polly was friendly with that she’d suspected were like that, capital T, italicised. Effeminate, friendly, no girlfriends. Polly and Tommy never seemed to care, helped them out once when their window got bricked, but they never spoke of it. 

Ada learned quite quickly that it wasn’t something you acknowledged openly, even if you didn’t mind. Even if you were inclined.

It made Freddie’s new friends all the more exciting. She wore her favourite dress that night, it rode high, higher than all her others. Red, of course. He’d grinned at her when she came downstairs. She felt an ache sometimes, that he still thought it was all for him, all for the cause. Pity, maybe. Guilt? She’d loved him even if fucking him felt the same as doing Shelby Limited accounts. He was her family and he was a good man.

(Communism was also something only people who thought they were good men tended to believe in, which is probably why she stopped somewhere down the line.)

Freddie Thorne guided his wife into the party, in her tight red dress, like he’d just won first prize at the races. They’d arrived late. Everyone was already moderately drunk with Freddie well on his way, ever the lightweight. 

She hadn’t wanted to drink. She wanted to take it all in. A lot of Russians. Black people. A few Chinese, even. A man sat in the corner with his hand down the pants of his friend who tried half heartedly to cover it with his drink. Nobody paid any mind. She remembers looking to Freddie, rapt in conversation with some older European man, about tax systems and the bourgeoisie and revolution, and thinking, it’s here Freddie, right in front of you, it’s here. We’re watching revolution in its softest form and you’re not even looking. 

The woman on the other side of the older man caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.

”Your friend is very chatty.” Russian. 

“My husband. But yes. You’re not wrong.”

She smirked at her, stood. Held out her hand and raised an impatient eyebrow when Ada simply stared at her. She clasped it tentatively and she lifted her up. 

The woman, older than her but not as much as the man, led them off, patting her friend on the head as she moved like that was her way of saying goodbye. Like he was her dog. Ada gave Freddie a weak smile but he barely looked at her. She turned on her heel and followed.

Her dress had been beautiful, is what Ada remembers the most. Dark blue velvet, falling off of her shoulders like it was scared to touch her. Her face is less clear — over the years, she’d found it seemed to take the picture of whatever woman she was taking a liking to at that moment. At least it did when she reimagined their encounter between her bedsheets, writhing. 

“You are Ada Shelby, yes?” She’d said as she led them up the stairs.

”Yes. I didn’t catch your name.” 

“Would you like it?” She was annoying, Ada remembers that much. Liked the sound of her own voice too much. Weirdly, it made her more attractive. She wondered if that’s how Freddie felt about her. 

“If you’re offering it.” 

“Ella. You’ll have to earn the last.” She pulled her into the bathroom with her and suddenly Ada realised just how she was going to do that. 

She left the room with sore knees and centre, a wet mouth, and a lot more to live for than she had when she entered. 

Ella Fedorov’s legs wrapped around her waist had left an imprint there that she’d feel for the rest of her life. 

Moving to America had given her a lease on life she never allowed herself to dream of. The women there were godly; the men wary enough of her name and her accent to stay away. A few streets over from her flat was a ‘queer bar’. She’d overheard about it from some of the secretary’s at the office — Margaret from printing’s brother had been arrested near there, apparently. They spoke of it in hushed voices and scattered when she approached. They never really stopped doing that — they were very cautious of her for her entire stay there. It’s not like it was new. As a child, she never had close friends. All of the girls were too in awe of her brothers to care about her as anything other than a means to get to them, and all the boys too scared. Except Freddie.

It was always except Freddie for her. She wondered if Freddie would ever set foot in a queer bar — she’d always wondered, him and Tommy. He’d always gotten to Tommy in a way nobody else outside of the family did until, well, until Grace. 

It was probably just wishful thinking, thinking if he was that way too it eased her guilt, that she wouldn’t be burning at the stake alone, eventually, but she did wonder.

The women in the bar took to her straight away but she was hesitant at first. God, the way Tommy would explode if she undid all his work here for a fuck. It was tempting sometimes, especially if he’d been particularly stroppy with her over the phone that day, when they’d wink, gesture her over, but she stayed strong, sipping her drink and watching, watching, watching. Most of the women who took a liking to her were not of interest to her; butch, she’d picked up the term. It was exhilarating to see them be so free and she admired them, but it wasn’t for her: she wanted her Russian girl again. 

“You come here just to spy, English?” The barmaid eventually raised an eyebrow at her after a few visits empty handed. She was pretty in an unremarkable way and Ada took to the way she looked at her immediately. A hint of suspicion. Good, she would be too. There weren’t many people dressed as nicely as her in this place and the ones that were tended to keep to the private rooms. 

”I’d be pretty bad at it if I was, don’t you think?” Ada smiled at her over her drink. 

Her name tag read Emily. They talked some more until she told her she got off at one and walked away from her, tending to the other side of the bar. The clock read 12:36. Ada bought another drink, and afterwards Emily took her back to her tiny flat in the Bronx in a taxi which Ada gladly paid for, took her inside and in return she taught her how to please her, thoroughly. 

Ada didn’t leave until six in the afternoon the next day. Karl hadn’t even noticed. She cried all night.

She’d never gone back to the same woman twice, but she remembered every single one — she was courteous at least to do that, unlike her brothers. Except Tommy. Ada knew Tommy would remember them all, it was just the way he was. Like her. Always fucking like her. She deplored it, same as Polly did. Watching Thomas grow up was likely a strange experience for her aunt, Ada realised as she got older; he was everything she would’ve been had she been a man, had she been burdened with the freedom to ponder over who she wanted to be. And the war, obviously. Who could ever forget the war? 

Michael’s new wife spoke of the war like it had been a summer camp she attended. She’d laughed when it got brought up, a glint in her eye, one of the first few days she’d been there. They’d won, hadn’t they? They were free. It was all over. 

It’s not like Ada didn’t know what American’s were like; she knew they hadn’t suffered the same devastation. That they didn’t talk about it in the same coarse, hollow way they did. It struck her because she knew Gina was smarter. The second she’d come in on Michael’s arm, Ada had known it wasn’t love. The way her eyes hungrily scanned the place and them, reaping over everything, barely taking notice of the man next to her. Polly and Tommy has noticed it too, for sure. She was in danger. Surely she saw that? 

It wasn’t until the day they went to the hospital that Ada really clocked on. 

“I heard Tommy tried to kill your husband.” Ada stared at her. Michael had a bigger mouth than even she thought. 

“I’m not married.” Gina only rolled her eyes, quirking the side of her lips. Ada raised her eyebrows at her. “Did Michael tell you that?” 

“Why? Would Tommy do the same to him?” The glint in her eyes was unquestionable - she was almost on the edge of her seat. Ada almost pitied her. An American opportunist caught up in things she had no idea the size of.

The way she sat with her legs crossed, staring right at her, intrigued her though. It made her have a little more respect for her cousin — she couldn’t confidently say she wouldn’t allow herself to be caught up in it, if she‘d tried it with her. Men weren’t as wary to the games of women as she was. A women couldn’t plausibly want to do him any harm, couldn’t possibly not love him when there wasn’t anything material he couldn’t give her. 

  
“Of course not. Polly might, though.” Ada laughed it off, looked out the window. Gina hadn’t liked that — she could feel the woman’s eyes burning into her as they drove. 

  
They didn’t really talk much the rest of the day. It wasn’t unpleasant, per say, but it was certainly odd. Ada felt like she was always on the verge of saying something, that she was always weighing her up. Her gaze never left her. It felt a little like she was with Tommy at his most paranoid. 

Admittedly though, she was impressed. The girl didn’t fumble. Anyone who wasn’t on the look out for people trying to hurt her family since puberty probably wouldn’t have noticed the shiftiness in her. 

She didn’t tell Polly or Tommy about her conversation with Gina. It was obvious to her that she wanted to know how far Tommy would go, if they were to betray him. If he’d hunt them down the way he’d done with so many others. She couldn’t imagine her asking such a question if she had any serious intention to do so. Either that, or she’d seriously underestimated Ada’s intelligence. She felt like it was a safe bet and to not get either of them anymore worked up than they already were. Her brother had been seriously insufferable since skipping down to Parliament and Polly was fast approaching insane. Hell, even Arthur was looking good in comparison these days.

Naturally, Gina being involved with Mosely had come as a shock to her. Come as a shock to everyone, mind. Sure, it was only sex, only to protect herself in case it all went wrong here, but how dare she? 

Polly and Tommy didn’t care; she’d chosen them in the end, after all. One big scam from Gina and Mosley’s not a problem and the Peaky fucking Blinders win again, that’s how Thomas saw it. She assumes Polly just didn’t care anymore. Apathy was very much her strong suit these days, even with Michael. Ada thinks she might be ashamed of him, ashamed of how he could be stupid enough to mould so easily into Tommy’s and now Gina’s hands. As a mother herself, she wasn’t sure what she’d prefer Karl to be — easily led or leading others to their demise? It certainly seemed like the latter. 

He was shaping up to be more like her brothers everyday. It was terrifying, but also gave her a warped sense of pride — she wouldn’t want him to be like Michael. Whining. Demure. Pathetic.

Amazingly, he stayed with Gina after it all. After Mosely was out of the picture and they’d won, as always, and her affair with him had been uncovered and she’d helped them get rid, he’d stayed with her. They’d won, right? Casualties be damned. They found a permanent place in London and Tommy had him doing accountancy for one of the bigger factories, on a probation of sorts. Gina had the baby just before. Michael accepted through gritted teeth when she had pushed him to accept. 

Her brother pitied him, Ada could see that. He’d loved Grace enough to forgive her. Ada couldn’t help but think this was different. Gina did not love Michael. Strangely, she didn’t think it was a malicious deception, like before, but a sequence of events that had unravelled and she now could see no way out. Lizzie thought the same.

“Tommy still doesn’t trust him but he’s family. He likes her, though, I can tell. He likes smart people,” she’d said to Ada one night while they waited for Tommy to return home. Ada needed to speak to him about her situation. The baby. The baby with the dead, black dad. 

The baby she was desperate to get rid of. A real life abortion for Ada Shelby, this time. She hoped God has some kind of points system in place for this kind of thing. The first time she was young, petrified, desperate and she hadn’t actually gone through with it — he’d understand. But now? She wasn’t even attracted to the father. She just hadn’t had a woman in over a year and fucking an ostracised man felt like the closest she could get to the thrill. 

Cynical, yes, but she missed him desperately, the same as Freddie. He was a good man. They were both good men. Maybe she wouldn’t get rid of it. Raise her own two good men.

She didn’t give much of a response to Lizzie; she didn’t want her to know how much she’d thought about it herself. How much Gina crossed her mind. Had it been that long? Was it because she was American? She did have a striking resemblance to one of the girls she’d taken home, a shy, rich man’s daughter who’d blushed the whole night and cried afterwards, begged her to stay with her and then begged her to leave and not to breathe a word. 

Ada couldn’t imagine Gina crying into her shoulder. She certainly couldn’t imagine her begging for anything. 

  
“May I?” The first real words she’d spoken to her outside of hushed family arguments over Tommy’s outrageous plans, or their little hospital trip. Ada looked at her, startled. Gina gestured towards the wine. She nodded at her.

“I didn’t hear you come in.” Gina smiled (was it a smile? Or a smirk?) and took a seat across the table. They were at the offices. No one was else was around so Ada had seated herself at the big boardroom table Tommy loved to bang his fist on. She was going over some paperwork about a factory opening in Brighton. She assumed Gina was waiting for Michael, who would be skulking around somewhere. Brooding. 

“I did used to be a ballerina.” Ada looked up again. It was a smile. She looked a little fuzzy around the edges. Had she been drinking before? She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be an accomplice in this. 

“Are you waiting for Michael?” She asked. Gina finished her glass and poured another. 

“I came here to do so but he seems to have already left.” She rests her head in her hand and looks at her. “I saw you through the window.” 

It throws Ada a little. She’d walked past her own brothers when she’d seen them through the glass before. She looked over at the unnecessarily huge, sprawling panes but Gina must’ve closed the blinds on her way in. What was she to say? 

What were they to talk about? How drunk, precisely, was her cousin’s wife? Nobody really spoke to Gina unless they had to, even now.

“I’m just finishing up some paperwork. Exhilarating, I know.” She went for the friendly option, although something in the American’s eyes was throwing her. 

  
Gina still looked at her like a scientist would a lab rat. It was extremely off putting and prolonged eye contact felt almost like a rebellion. But it seemed softer, like the experiment was over and she was simply keeping watch out of natural curiosity. 

“Tommy let’s you do the important stuff, doesn’t he? He trusts you.” It was a statement more than a question. 

“I’m his sister. Why wouldn’t he?” Ada prickled. 

“Because you’re a woman.” 

“Polly’s a woman. She’s the second smartest person I know.” 

“After Tommy.” Gina laughed, looking at her over her glass. She was gorgeous, really. Ada hated to think about it, but God, it had been so long, and she was beautiful. The low cut dress showed half her chest and the tight, definition of her throat. 

A dull ache between her legs made itself known as she watched her gently wipe some wine away from her mouth. 

“After Tommy, yes.” She conceded. And maybe you, she added in her head. 

  
“I think you’re smarter than them both.” She said it bluntly, like a throwaway comment, but she was looking at her again, with those scientists eyes. Ada didn’t look away this time. Was it a challenge, or a compliment?

  
Suddenly, Gina rose. She walked over to the whiskey tray and poured herself a glass of something Ada thinks even Tommy wouldn’t on a bad day. 

“I have friends who knew you. In New York.” Ada’s breath hitches. Gina was looking out the window, her back to her.

Of course, she didn’t just happen to pop in. She’d been asking about her. She wanted her to know that. Of course she did. Ada racked her brain to think of her would’ve ratted her out in New York. Emily? She had been annoyed that she hadn’t wanted to see her again. Always scurrying to the other end of the bar when she came in. But no, she wouldn’t. And Gina said friends. Did that mean — surely not. Ada stiffened in her chair. She wouldn’t let her think she had anything. 

  
“Who? I wasn’t there too long.” Gina turns, leaning back against the cabinet. 

“Well, a few. They spoke highly of you. Very highly.” Ada flushes but focuses on the paper in front of her.

“That’s good to hear.” 

“Of course.” A beat. “Does Tommy know?” 

Ada doesn’t look at her. She’s been best. She knows it. She should’ve been more fucking careful. 

“No.” 

“Oh. Why not?” 

“Because he doesn’t. Do you want something, Gina? Or are you just here to taunt me for no reason?” She snaps. Gina flinches. Ada watches the brown liquid in her glass jump around. 

“No — I, well. I was just curious. I didn’t think he’d mind, is all.” She said it soft. Softer than Ada had ever heard her speak, which wasn’t much, admittedly, but it made her stop a little. 

Ada set the pen down and stood. Gina watched her, nurturing the glass like a baby. She walked over to the cabinet and poured herself a glass. Gin. Whiskey reminded her of her father, and she hated the taste. She downed the glass in one and poured another. She could tell Gina was getting restless, not in the driving seat anymore.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to — it wasn’t my intention to upset you.” 

“You didn’t upset me,” Ada laughs, leaning back against the cabinet also. Their arms are almost touching. Ada can feel her hairs on end. Gina’s looking at her like she’s the most elegantly constructed blueprint on the planet, and she the under qualified engineer. 

  
“Have you told Michael?”

“Of course not.” She seems genuinely offended. Incredulous, even. Had the question hurt her?

  
Ada understands, suddenly, and it feels like a tide has just washed over her. She sets her glass down.

“Michael has a big mouth. You shouldn’t tell him anything,” She tells his wife. 

“I don’t.” Softer still. 

And then Ada grabs her waist, and she kisses her.

Gina livens to it immediately like it’s exactly what she came in for, hungrily wrapping her hands in brown hair like tearing away wrapping paper. It’s a new low, Ada recognises even with her tongue in the woman’s mouth and her thigh pressing up in between her two. Fucking her cousins wife. Jesus. Maybe she really was just like Tommy after all. 

  
Gina had done this before, she could tell. Not as many times as her, definitely, but at least once. She’d dropped to her knees in front of her, for fucks sake. What kind of a woman did that her first time besides her? And Ada had been asked, a bony Russian hand guiding her. Gina simply dropped, and smirked up at her. Always smirking. Maybe that’s just her face, Ada had a sudden revelation, amidst the euphoria. Did she look at Michael the same, when she pleased him? Ada couldn’t picture it. Maybe she was like her. Cursed. A doomed existence without love, just longing, and occasional sparks of joy. Sparks of this.

It strikes a remarkable resemblance to her first time when they’d finished. Well, when Ada had finished. Gina rose to her feet, wiped her mouth and looked at her. It was only a second, maybe not even that, but Ada caught the fear in her eyes. They couldn’t take this back; Gina was waiting for a reaction. A symbol of solidarity — she was the one who’d gone out on the limb, Ada could argue she was defenceless, pressed against the cabinet writhing against her own will, should they be found out for whatever reason. 

  
She half considered holding out on Gina, leaving her to agonise over it. Maybe she’d fuck off back to America and take Michael with her, but she couldn’t, not when she was looking at her the way she was. 

“Will you be at the meeting tomorrow?” Gina blinked at her, brushing a hair behind her ear. It fell back across her face. Ada reached out and put it back. She felt the woman loosen under her touch. At ease, officer.

“I suppose, yes. I’ll have to check.” 

  
With that, Ada pulled on her coat and grabbed her bag. Gina half followed her, hovering two steps behind like a timid dog scared this is the last time it’ll see its owner but not wanting to let it show. 

“Goodnight, Gina.” Ada pressed a kiss to her cheek, hard enough so there’d be the faintest lipstick stain on her already flushed cheeks.

  
She would have to choose herself whether she would wipe it off or not.


End file.
